Europe’s first driverless-car test completed

U.K. company Oxbotica has successfully completed Europe’s first trial of a fully autonomous vehicle with no occupants on public roads.

The test took place in Oxbotica’s home city of Oxford and featured a new electric vehicle prototype, the AppliedEV – essentially a platform that previews future vehicles for the transportation sector – fitted with the firm’s Oxbotica Driver tech.

Oxbotica Driver uses a combination of radar vision and laser-based sensors to give the vehicle an understanding of its surroundings, backed up by artificial intelligence.

The milestone was hailed as a “historic moment” by Oxbotica founder Paul Newman and follows two years of extensive testing by the firm as it developed its system architecture on and off road in the U.K., Europe and North America.

More significantly, it means another hurdle on the path to commercialization of the technology has been negotiated. According to Oxbotica, a deal with The Ocado Group means we could see goods delivery vehicles fitted with the company’s driverless tech in operation as early as next year.

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